So, this one is a bit different. For starter's, it is Roland alone. Arriane is mentioned (of course) but she isn't present. It's also kind of a retaliation to the new book. Idk if you have read it yet, but I wasn't too happy with it. I guess I would've been more upset if she told the story of RoArr, because it would've contradicted this fic, but at the same time, there was like, NO MENTION OF THEM! I mean, I almost thought they were just friendly and nothing was going on, but then I flipped back through other books and they are just...unf, so obviously fucking.

Anyway, in the book, Roland is with a girl named Rosalie and Arriane is gay (bi, because she is seriously with Roland)... so in this Roland is too (of course, I mean, being alive so long you're surely sleeping with everything). So, I don't know how you guys will take to this, because it is very different from previous chapters... so let me know.

I'll publish another (better) chapter soon, back in my usual writing style.

Name: The Muse
Rating: K+
Number: IX

Roland had been an artist once. A long time ago.

He'd had this muse working for him, a young thing, hardly old enough to take off her clothes for him—though during those days, age had never mattered, however, he'd never really been into that.

Quite on the contrary, he liked his women older. Women who knew the boundaries of their relationships, ones that didn't ask him for too much, and specifically ones that never wanted his love. He'd given his heart away before, as everyone does, and, as everyone else, he'd had it torn and ravaged and utterly destroyed.

There had been Alison, Rosalie, Margarette, and Lucrezia, all of whom had worked their way into his heart at some point since the Fall, and everyone of them had left him pitifully distraught in their wake.

Considering the fact that he has been alive since the beginning of time, a set of loves small as this was relatively limiting, but for Roland, it was enough to make him wary of the relationship between companionship, sex, and love. He took these women to bed because it took away, if only for a moment, the desolate, consuming feeling of loneliness that had, and would, accompany him for millennia.

He liked his women a certain way. He liked tall women, ones whom thought for themselves but were reserved and quiet. He liked a forlorn beauty, women that kept secrets, women that met him in the middle of the night to scratch an itch that'd been gaining on him for any number of days, months, or years.

He often liked married ones.

His men he liked quite differently. On the off chance that his lover was male, which had happened quite a few times, he chose ones that weren't like his young muse nor his older women.

He chose young men—small, strapping boys that had never considered making love to another man. When he pursued a woman, it took no more than a few meetings before they realized the meaning of his interest and came to him. He was never the one to seek out the woman, he just made his intentions somewhat clear and she could approach them however she liked. With his men, he had to push.

And it was more fun that way.

He came to them and pursued them, pushing and insisting, and biding his time before tumbling into bed and experiencing the euphoria that sex is.

But during his brief stint as an artist, his young muse had fallen into neither of these two categories. She wasn't one of his older women and she certainly didn't resemble an innocent boy. And for years, he could never understand why he was so attracted to her.

They'd met one afternoon as he entered the West Moorlands. Her family had owned the stables he'd rested in. As soon as it was obvious that he was interested in her, her father had offered him a price. Surprisingly, his girl had hardly seemed roused by the gesture, if anything, she was glad to join him. In consideration of that, he easily paid the much too low fee.

Occasionally they'd settle down, a year here, six months there. He made good money off his art when he went into a city, and she was more than willingly to follow him wherever he went.

She was beautiful, more so over time, with thick black hair and a sharp chin; calculating eyes that could determine all the pheromones in the air quicker than he could snap.

He didn't love her. But he loved painting her, he enjoyed fucking her, and liked her company, but for a while, he had no idea why.

And then one day they ran into Gabbe and it was only five minutes before he understood.

She had found him as he was entering a city square on the coast to sell his latest piece. They had exchanged a few good-natured words, still enemies but always siblings, before she asked him for an update.

Roland only shrugged, "traveling."

She asked to see his painting, and he obliged, pulling the cloth away and displaying his new work. As an artist, he was nothing special. But the picture was classical and he could be a good salesmen when need be, it would get him good money.

Gabbe looked at the work with a sad expression, knowing and solemn at the same time. He hadn't expected the expression. It was one he'd never seen in regards to a painting.

But he only raised an eyebrow, moving the cloth back over the frame.

"She has been south," Gabbe said slowly, "further east too, I think."

"Who—"

"It's beautiful, Roland," Gabbe said, putting a hand to his cheek for only a moment before withdrawing and stepping back. "I'll see you," she said softly, turning away and falling into a crowd.

He knew it then, as he should have the instant he'd seen the girl on the road half a decade before.

She was the spitting image of Arriane. And in the places where she wasn't—the wider nose and slimmer eyes—he had painted her as such, manipulating her features into ones that looked more familiar. There was a tug on his gut, and after a few minutes of standing alone among a mass, Roland handed the painting over to a fruit vendor and descended into the streets. He wouldn't be returning to his muse, but it hardly mattered. He'd stayed too long as it was.

The air was heavy as he continued walking, pace after pace with no destination in mind.

There'd been all his young men and all his older women. There'd been Alison, Rosalie, Margarette, and Lucrezia: the women he'd loved. There'd been his beautiful young muse.

But none of them even touched on Arriane. She was the one that left the void all his other lovers were used to fill, and even then the hold only remained partially full.

And every time he got rid of her, every time he finally thought he was wholly, truly, blissfully in love, she always came up. With Lucrezia, beautiful Lucrezia, whom he married and then abandoned days within Arriane showing up again. And Rosalie, whom had left him heartbroken, and then had quickly been forgotten as soon as he saw Arriane again.

And his muse. His young girl that had given herself to him so easily, was all just a manifestation of the one person who he tried to get away from.

Fate was a tricky fellow, and Roland was never one to enjoy his game.

Perhaps, for now, it was all the same to continue on down the street. As incurable as loneliness seemed to be, it was never as disastrous as being with Arriane always was. Whether for a few hours or a few years, whenever she left—or he did for that matter—it hurt significantly more than the pain of walking through an endless world alone. And so, step after step, Roland continued on, angry at the skies.

Loved it? Hate it? Like I said, very different.

Review and tell me what you think! Always taking requests!

TBC